


Is it too late? (It is)

by Idle_Aspect



Category: Apex Legends (Video Games), Interstellar (2014)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt No Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Inspired by Interstellar (2014), I’m deciding right now the guy in the lab is named paul, Mentions of Death, like heavily, mega angst, well a little at the end
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-11
Updated: 2020-12-11
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:48:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28008708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Idle_Aspect/pseuds/Idle_Aspect
Summary: A Rewrite of the Interstellar hospital scene, to take place between Newton and his mother.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 11





	Is it too late? (It is)

**Author's Note:**

> Obviously this is VERY heavily inspired by Interstellar (2014) which I of course did not write. This was meant to be short and (bitter)sweet so enjoy at own risk.

Mary succeeded in her goal of time travel, but it was wrong. It was all wrong. 

She didn’t go back far enough. 

“Doctor Somers?” A man in a white lab coat gasped in shock at her sudden blinding appearance in Hammond labs. 

“Where is he?” Mary replied instantly, shrugging off the harness and many wires that previously connected her to a massive machine, but instead now hung against her legs sadly.

The portal behind her hummed softly before disappearing with a soft pop as she flipped a switch on the panel connected to her wrist.

“I’m afraid I don’t-“ 

“Where is my son? Where is Newton.”

The man frowned slightly and readjusted his glasses that had slipped on the bridge of his nose in his shock. 

“He’s in the Olympus Hospital? How did you get-“ 

Mary didn’t even hear the rest of the sentence. She didn’t need to. Hearing her son was alive and where he is was enough. She didn’t even stop to think about why he would be in the hospital. 

Thinking back on it later, she should have.

Mary knew where she was going. After all it was the same layout as she was used to, both before and after her little trip to space. Although this time it was missing the massive rift, and the phase runner was still being constructed. 

Ignoring the gaping looks she received, Mary shoved the doors to the hospital open, the wires and cables hanging from her belt clinking together. 

“Newton Somers, I’m here to see Newton Somers.” 

If the receptionist looked alarmed at her gear, or that he was speaking to a woman long believed to be lost to the desolate clutches of space; he didn’t show it. 

“Room 203. He’s expecting you.” 

There was a man in the hospital room, an older man, with a head of white hair and a gap between his teeth. His face was lined with age and kindness. 

Mary could recognize his face anywhere.

Newton Somers was reclining back in a hospital bed, the hospital gown appearing baggy against his debilitated frame. He was surrounded by what Mary could only assume were their family members, if the varying shades of red hair and freckles were to go by. 

“Newtie?” She gasped from the hallway, attracting the attention of the rest of the room. They all filed out of the room at a gesture that Newton made, his mother rushing forward to grasp his outstretched hand. 

Her tears were flowing, freely and gushing down her cheeks. 

“So...You were expecting me?” 

He laughed a little, the sound something frail and breakable; even in the still air of the hospital room. She couldn’t help but laugh with him; even if it felt wrong. Even if this didn’t feel real. 

Even if this wasn’t how their reunion was supposed to be.

He still had the unbridled mirth in his eyes, the raw joy that he had contained as a boy. It heartened her to see, but in a bitter sweet way. She should have been here for him.

“I’m so sorry.” Mary rasped quietly. 

“I know.” Newton was solemn, looking into the face of his mother, over 50 years his junior. “People didn’t believe me, they thought I was crazy for still having hope.”

She pressed a kiss to the back of his hands as she cradled them close to her face. The tears were soaking into his skin now, her cheeks wet with them.

“Nobody believed me, but I knew you’d come back.” Mary’s throat constricted tightly at his words. “How?” The word was barely a whisper, heavy with emotions. Newton, her wonderful boy, smiled, a beautiful thing full of wisdom and words unspoken. “Because my mum promised me.” She let out a choked sob at his words. She kept her promise. She came back and kept her promise. 

“I’m here now, pet.” She heard herself saying, “I’m here.”

“No,” Newton was shaking his head and she was confused. She didn’t intend on leaving his side, not after being cleaved apart for so long. “No parent should have to watch their own child die.” 

Oh. **_Oh_ **.

“I have my kids here for me now.” He continued, “You go.”

“Newt,” Mary tried, grasping for straws, “I can _fix_ this! I have the technology! I can go back and we can be together! I-I-“ 

He cut her off as a single tear leaked from the corner of his eye. “Don’t.” 

Mary stopped in shock, staring back at her son. “What do you mean? I can go back and it will be as everything was meant to be?” 

He was still shaking his head.

“If you go back I will not have lived the life I have lived, I will never have met my wife or have had my children. I can’t sacrifice them for that.”

No. No. This couldn’t be right. Could it? 

It could.

Mary knew what the right answer was, because she herself would do the same thing. As a mother, she would trade anything for her son. As a father, he would do the same. 

“ _Mom_.” Newt’s aged hand came up to rest against her cheek. An action that she herself had used many many years ago to comfort him when he cried, “It’s okay.” 

This was the hardest thing she had ever done. The hardest thing she would ever have to do. To leave her own son. To leave him knowing that she had tried and that he knew this, respected this, but couldn’t have this.

“Where do I go?” She asked through the new haze of tears that threatened to slip down her cheeks.

“Back.” It was a simple enough answer, but one could hear the layers of emotions that wound through each word. 

Mary slowly stood, releasing her grasp on Newton’s hand. Backing out of the room slowly, even as their family came in.

**_(His golden smile in the wee hours of the morning, his weight settling comfortably on her back as he pestered her to wake up)_ **

Watching as he smiled in comfort at a grandchild, as a Man she could only assume was his son rested an arm on his shoulder.

**_(Newton’s head burning with fever, crying out for her to hold him.)_ **

She looked on briefly at the family he had made, one that he had made without her perhaps. She held no malice, no ill will. She didn’t like it; but Mary did understand it.

**_(The first feeling of his small body against the bare skin of her chest, hair stuck to her face but smiling because he had been brought into her life)_ **

She would do the same if it was reversed, of course. She would do anything for him. Cross galaxies, transpose across time itself. 

Mary would even walk herself out of his life. 

**_(“Do you ever think I’ll get to go to space like you?” Newtie once asked. “You can do anything you want, my love.” She had sighed back contently)_ **

She feels at peace when she walks back through her portal. Maybe it is the lovely blue of the Olympus sky above her or the knowledge that her pain and sacrifice birthed something wonderful. 

  
  


**_(“I love you, Momma.” He had sleepily murmured whenever she came to make sure he was tucked in. Mary brushed her fingers over his head, pressing a kiss to his forehead, “and I you, my boy.”)_ **

A smile ghosts over her mouth as she enters, feeling none of the pain and all of the light.

**Author's Note:**

> Big thank you to @Hoerizon over on tumblr who has been AMAZING through my whacked out process. Feel free to drop by and leave a review for me on tumblr! @IdleAspect


End file.
